10: Black and White pt3 of the Suffering Trilogy
by Silent Elegy
Summary: REVISED Sequel to Hounds and Hunters. Silver is finally dead, and Danny can get on with his life. So why do malefactors stalk the streets? It's time again to play the game, only this time, Amity Park is the battleground.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Danny Phantom and all related characters are the product of Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon studios. The Suffering is the product of Midway Games. The Malice is based on a characterfrom Tecmo's Fatal Frame. Darwin, Deadeye, Silver,Kat/Electra and all related characters are the product Silent Elegy.

* * *

A/N: Ahem. I know all of you say it was great, but I didn't think it was near as good as Cat and Mouse. After re-reading that one, I finally figured out why. So here it is again, the revised edition of Black and White. This is going to be so much better, I promise. The prologue and most of the first chapter are the same. After that, it's going to be very different. Not completely, just vey. So those of you being bugged by points from the first try (Random ;) ) they will still be answered. Now, from the beginning...

This is the sequel to Hounds and Hunters, which is the sequel to Cat and Mouse. Yes, it's a trilogy. Read the first two, or you'll have no idea what's going on. Cat and Mouse was a crossover based on The Suffering. Hounds and Hunters was based on its sequel, Ties That Bind. There is no third game, so this is a crossover in the most technical sense of the word only.

Yes, just about everything you are about to read is my creation. The few that are not are mentioned here in the prologue: Killjoy, the slayers, the mainliners, and the marksmen.Everything else is mine. Except the gorgers. I haven't decided if I'm going to add them or not.

Okay, as previously, someone will probably say bastard a time or two, there may be mentions of the word whore, andSilveris quite likely to cuss in Spanish. Other than that, there will be no foul language. There will be violence. Lots and lots of violence. It won't necessarily be the fighting kind, but it will be there. You have been warned, so no whining. For those of you left, prepare for the angst.

* * *

It's time for a history lesson, my dear boy. I know how much you look forward to our little sessions. I must say, you've made better progress than I expected after that little debacle; doubtless, that sister of yours has something to do with this, yes? But I digress. 

When one has looked into the mouth of darkness, as you have, he finds it rather difficult to look away again. The darkness exists in all places, not only those few you have seen before. I know you won't enjoy hearing this, but it exists here, as well, in your quaint little city of Amity Park.

Does this come as a shock to you? Violence is a universal trait; all mankind shares it. Even the smallest hamlet has, at one time, had its share of murders and hatred. True that it is more concentrated in a place like Carnate Island, but there is no way to escape it no matter where you go.

Oh, do try to pay attention, my boy. I remind you that, as your doctor, I have only your best interests at heart. You may not want to hear this, but it must be said. Amity Park has its share of malefactors. The slayers exist everywhere; they are the spirit of violence in its purist form. The mainliners, as well, for they represent, not drug use or lethal injection, but simple debauchery. And I rather fear the marksmen have followed their master here, so you will likely meet them, as well.

Their master? My dear boy, surely…

Meryll, of course. To whom else would I be referring? Of course, she has followed you here. But, then, you knew that already.

Please, listen. Whether you choose to believe this or not, what I have to say is of vital importance. You are here; she is here. Do you honestly believe that it can't happen again? Our dear Meryll is one of the malefactors; surely you realized this?

Ah, I have your attention now? Then listen very closely, for I shan't repeat myself.

Twenty years ago, a madman climbed that clock tower in the center of your city with a sniper rifle in one hand and a very corrosive acid in the other. He shot eighty people from up there before the police were even able to draw near. If I recall correctly, he came to be known simply as Deadeye. Any true identification was rendered impossible, I'm afraid, by the acid he poured down his throat when they arrived to apprehend him. It quite destroyed his face.

I should also like to warn you about Darwin, who took his namesake's beliefs to heart. Not the most inspired or notorious of killers, but one must admire the way he disposed of his bodies. Consuming them is most thorough. I believe he vanished one day, shortly after his arrest. Perhaps he consumed himself?

No one appreciates wit anymore. Ah, well. There are others, I'm sure, of the mindless variety. You will meet them.

And so, I watch with great interest as this final chapter in your pedophiliac affair draws to a close. I shall be most interested to see which of you emerges as the final victor. Do not underestimate your opponent, my boy. Our dear Meryll has defeated countless men stronger in will than even you. Even in death, she is still a most perilous foe.

Where is she? Really, Daniel, you are not that dense. You have known the answer to the question since she died at your hands. As she was so fond of saying, "When you take a life, you make it part of you."


	2. Chapter One

The quiet hum of machinery that emanated from the basement was an almost welcome defense against the uncomfortable silence of the kitchen. Jazz peeked over the top of a book to watch her brother with worried eyes. He had been doing so well for a while, but the past few days had been bad. Now, he sat with his head in his hand, poking at his cereal as though he had forgotten what it was for. Or even that it was there. He stared at the table listlessly, lost in thought. "Danny?" she began.

His only response was to lift his eyebrows ever so slightly and make a quiet noise in the back of his throat.

"Are you okay?"

She thought he wasn't going to answer, but finally he sighed and turned to face her. "Just nightmares," he said quietly.

"About Silver?"

"When are they not?" He sighed again and dropped his spoon in the bowl. "I dreamt she was back."

Jazz covered his hand comfortingly. "Danny, Silver's dead," she reminded him.

"I know!" he exclaimed, lunging back from the table to pace. "She's dead. But me and you both know being dead doesn't mean you're gone."

"If she had really become a ghost, wouldn't you have sensed it?"

Danny shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I've never actually been there when someone died before. And…" He trailed off, unsure how to explain that Silver might be in her astral form without confessing that his friend Kat was one, too. The overdramatic thespian liked to be mysterious, so Danny had continued to let his friends and sister think she was just a weird kind of ghost. And, in a way, that's exactly what she was.

He ignored Jazz's prompting to complete his thought and sat down again. He didn't want to think; thinking was painful. Although he never thought he would see the day, he was actually looking forward to school. It would help to distract him.

Well, theoretically, it would help distract him. Sadly, the actual practice didn't work out as planned. Even Dash's ridicule couldn't get through his mood. Part of that was the constant buzzing in his head; the sound, so like dozens of people crying for help, had drowned out almost everything else. Most, however, was the voice that whispered behind the crying. He couldn't make out the words, and he was glad for it.

When lunch rolled around, he still had no appetite. He picked at it the same way he had breakfast, not paying much attention until Tucker asked, "Are you going to eat that?"

Danny smiled ever so slightly and shoved his tray toward his friend.

"I don't know why you'd want to," Sam remarked. "It's not like the food's that good."

"Hey, I'm hungry!" Tucker defended himself.

They had not yet asked if he okay, for which he was very grateful. It was all he had heard from Jazz the past few days, and he was getting sick of it. "It's not that," he interjected quietly. "He's just trying to get out of fifth period."

Sam laughed as Tucker motioned him to be quiet. "You better be careful trying that. They might send you to the nurse's office." The boy gave an exaggerated shudder and pushed the tray to the edge of the table.

Danny dropped out of the conversation, then, disturbed by the turn the whispering in his mind had taken. He was afraid it was Silver's voice, and she sounded almost jealous. He excused himself to his friends and went down the hall to the bathroom. After several minutes of trying to make the mental "white noise" go away, he glanced into the mirror and gasped.

The…apparition looked as though something had been nibbling on him. He wore a floppy hat that obscured his eyes. An upturned nose, reminiscent of a pig's, sat above a gaping, too-large mouth filled with razor teeth. What wrinkled, parchment-yellow skin he could see sagged as though the man had once been grotesquely fat, and had lost too much weight too quickly. Likewise, torn and filthy rags hung around his skeletal frame. "Ssso…hungry…" Darwin whispered harshly.

Danny whirled to face him, but there was no one there. Reasonably shaken, he started to leave and froze. If there was one malefactor invading the school…

As if on cue, someone screamed. "I'm going ghost!" the boy yelled out of habit as he summoned his alter ego and flew through the wall. Panicked students ran around at random, screaming and crying at the somewhat confused looking horde of monsters. Although they looked different than the ones from Baltimore, there was no mistaking that "warthog crossed with The Hulk" look. "Everybody, that way!" he yelled, pointing away from the cafeteria. Once everyone was out of the way, the creatures were easily defeated.

"Danny!" Tucker called quietly from where he and Sam had ducked into the girl's bathroom. From the sounds of frightened gibberish coming from within, he wasn't the only boy there.

"What were those things?" Sam asked.

"Gorgers," Danny answered shortly. "They're pretty stupid, and they live to eat. But if they're here, the others can't be far behind. Find Jazz and get everyone out of here. I've got to warn Mom and Dad." He barely waited for their nod of agreement before flying away. After a quick circuit to make sure there were no others in the school, he headed home.

It was almost a shock to see the city still intact. Logically, the game had only just begun, but logic didn't usually apply to malefactors. Still, he should have known they wouldn't be able to do that much damage that quickly. In fact, why were they already attacking? It was morning; most malefactors couldn't stand the light.

Sadly, a few of them could. He swooped down to rescue a few people from another horde of gorgers and told them to go home and stay there. They seemed to comply, but he didn't follow them to make sure. That was one good thing about the attack happening in Amity Park, at least. Most people were used to ghosts attacking and were more than willing to listen to town hero Danny Phantom. In Baltimore, the few people he had encountered had run from him, terrified.

Not bothering to change back, Danny shot through the wall of the kitchen and into the basement. "Jack!" he yelled. "Maddie! Where are you guys?"

Bright laughter echoed through his head. _I'm so bored, _amante,Silver whispered. _I want to play with you._

The boy froze. "What have you done with them?" he asked in a low and dangerous voice.

_What makes you think I've done anything?_ she laughed.

"Because whenever someone goes missing around you, it's usually your fault."

_You wound me,_ amante._ But you're close to right. I want you all for myself._

"Get out of my head," Danny snarled.

It felt like chains had wrapped themselves around him. In his mind, he saw her, eyes half-closed and a soft smile on her face. _Never again, my love._

"When you take a life, you make it part of you," Killjoy had said, and Silver before him. Danny had taken her life, and now…

He squashed down the sudden feeling of panic and glanced around. Kat was an astral projection, but most ghost hunting equipment still worked on her. At least, it did when she didn't force it to malfunction. Theoretically, Silver would be the same way.

The Fenton Ghost Catcher was meant to expel all ghostly influences from the body. True that it would probably separate his human and ghost halves again, but that was easily remedied. As long as it got rid of Silver, too, he didn't much care. With reckless abandon born of terror, he flung himself through the glowing web.

There was a moment when he felt like he was being ripped in half, but he was expecting that. That was, essentially, what was happening, after all. Then the moment was over, and he was looking up at himself. "Where is she?" he asked, staggering to his feet.

His ghost half gave him a small smile just before he was flung against the wall by an invisible hand. "I'm here, _amante_," she said in his voice. _I'm always here._

Danny struggled against the invisible bonds and tried to use his own telekinesis against her, but it seemed to have vanished. It had only been her power, after all, and the other two, as well. "Get…out of there!" he demanded.

_Never again, I said._ "Once I've dealt with the competition, you'll be all mine." She strode forward, the very picture of smug egotism, to plant her (HIS!) lips against Danny's. "Good night, _chico_…" she whispered. He was too stunned and alarmed to fight off the suggestion, and the world faded away.


	3. Chapter Two

"_What do you want with me?" he cried out in desperation._

"_I want you all for myself," Silver replied from somewhere in the darkness. "I want you to let me in, and let me be one with you. I'm so lonely…"_

The fog was gone, Danny realized as he slowly awoke. Silver's dream world was always shrouded in fog, but that time, it wasn't. He idly wondered what that could mean as he pulled himself to a sitting position. His head was pounding from being thrown against the wall; his body ached from being ripped in half; and the thought that Silver had taken over his ghost form made him shudder in revulsion. Then he remembered the kiss and started to gag.

At last, he pulled himself to his feet and looked around. The lab seemed to be intact. Since he no longer had access to powers of any kind, that was a very good thing. "Silver!" he called. Either she wasn't there, or she was ignoring him. Probably the latter. With a disgruntled sigh, he set about trying to locate his mother's latest creation.

After battling the malefactors in Baltimore, Maddie had created an ecto-rifle that would work on physical manifestations. Supposedly, it used ectoplasmic energy blasts that worked on the same frequency as a ghost's, as opposed to the Fentons' usual stock. It had yet to be named, although Jack had toyed with calling it the Fenton Monster Rifle. No one else in the family cared for the name.

As he was looking around for anything else he could use, there was a crash from upstairs. He froze, the cautiously called out, "Mom?" When no response was forthcoming, he started quietly up the steps and tentatively called out to his other family members. He hoped they just couldn't hear him, but he was afraid Silver had kidnapped them.

He paused in the threshold to the gloomy kitchen, suddenly reminded of every horror movie he had ever seen. How many times had he told the various main characters not to go upstairs, or downstairs, or that way? And now, he found himself repeating their often fatal mistakes. It quite abruptly hit him that he was only human, and he started to shake and back away.

What was he thinking? Phantom was gone; Silver had taken that part of him, along with his powers. All that was left was the all-too-mortal Danny Fenton. He started to dash back to the lab, intending to hide out there. He had to do something, and he would as soon as it was daylight and most of the monsters were gone.

They would be gone, right? He stopped again, wracked with indecision. Sure, the malefactors might be gone, but so would half the town. He couldn't just sit around while people were being killed out there.

He sank down to the steps and put his head in hands. "What do I?" he muttered, the picture of misery. Something else crashed and reminded him that there was something in the house with him. He scrambled to his feet and took two more steps downwards before stopping again.

Maybe he didn't have his powers, but he was still a Fenton, darn it. With a display of considerably more courage than he actually felt, he charged upstairs and slid to a surprised stop.

Maddie stood at the sink, staring at the wall before her. She was faded, and Danny had the feeling that it wasn't really her. However, Silver's illusions always seemed so real, so it couldn't have been her. Then the apparition turned slowly, and it wasn't his mother anymore.

It looked like a woman made out of fog. Although she was faded, he could see that she was paler than most people, even those who didn't spend much time in the sun. Her long, ratty hair was a shade of blonde that almost looked white. "She killed me…" she whispered, reaching out to Danny.

He wanted to run; he wanted to scream; he wanted to faint. Torn between actions, he found that he could only stand helplessly as the creature that had once been Silver's mother put a claw-like hand on his head.

* * *

_A door creaked slowly open, and a white haired girl crept into the room, her favorite pillow clasped protectively before her. "Hello, mother," she said softly._

"_Oh, Meryll, you shouldn't-" She broke off as her body was wracked with a coughing fit. Drawing a shuddering breath, she continued. "You'll catch it, too, baby. Go on back to Daddy."_

"_The doctor said the flu is deadly," the little girl persisted, coming closer. "He told father you won't live."_

_She tried to smile encouragingly. "Sweetie, I promise you. I'm not going anywhere."_

_The girl nodded, and she was suddenly alarmed by her child's calm acceptance. "I know you won't," she replied, lifting the pillow over her mother's face and holding it there. "I'll make sure of that."

* * *

_

Danny fell back into the present gasping for air. He lunged back and nearly fell down the stairs, but the woman had vanished. He spent a few minutes waiting for his heart rate to slow, then yelled and nearly fell down the stairs again when the small television flickered to static-plagued life. "Killjoy!" he exclaimed, one hand over his heart as thought he could make it slow down. "Don't…do that!"

The early nineteen hundred's psychiatrist chuckled superiorly. "Having a bit of trouble, are we, my boy?" He pretended not to hear the boy's rebellious grumbling. "This city's hospital does have a decent psychiatric ward, if I do say so. Certainly much more interesting than mine was, but then the technology has advanced quite considerably in eighty years."

"What do you want now?" Danny interrupted.

Killjoy shook his head and paced across the screen. "Only to help see you through the dark times ahead, my boy. For they will be dark, I assure you. Your little experiment has done more than rid you of our dear Meryll's presence. It has released a collective entity known as the Malice, which is made up of the lives she has stolen over the years."

Danny sighed. "And I'm sure they all want me dead."

"Not dead, my boy. They want to make you like themselves. I was able to drive away Adrianna, but I doubt I shall be able to do so a second time. You must be on your guard at all times.

"Now, as I am certain your next question will relate to Silver's current plans and whereabouts, I'm afraid I do not know. All I can tell you is that she has spent the day collecting all the people you care for, and has locked them up somewhere. I fear you will be forced to play her game again if you wish to rescue them."

At some point during the speech, the shaken boy had sunk into a chair. He looked up slightly from where he had buried his head in his arms to fix Killjoy with a skeptical glare. He was a fourteen-year-old kid; what could he possibly do against a thirty-year-old psychic who now had ghost powers in addition to her mental powers? He had an ecto-rifle that he wasn't even certain would work versus slayers, gorgers, mainliners, marksmen, and whatever else the city decided to throw at him.

He dropped his head again mumbled into his arm, "What am I supposed to do about it?" After a few minutes, he looked to see that Killjoy had gone. Of course. "What am I supposed to do?" he asked again, quietly.

The few remnants left over from his other half clambered for him to do something, anything. Anything was better than sitting around, and he had a job to do. He was hero, and people needed his help.

But he was human. There was nothing he could do.

Of course, his parents were only human, as well, his conscience argued. Ebony Angel and Valerie were only human. Police were only human; firemen were only human. In fact, he was, quite possibly, the only hero in the world who wasn't only human. So maybe, just maybe, being human didn't mean you were helpless.

He still would have felt better about facing those slayers if he had his ghost powers, but he stood and retrieved the ecto-rifle from where he had dropped it. His conscience was right, after all. Maybe he was just a fourteen-year-old kid, but he was a Fenton. And Fentons never turned their backs on people in need.

Something black and white flashed across the corner of his eye. "I see you there!" he called, following. No response. He was mildly surprised that she hadn't taken the opportunity to taunt him, but he shrugged it off.

He stopped suddenly and grinned, then dashed downstairs. Maybe the malefactors couldn't be hurt by ghost hunting weapons, and maybe the Malice couldn't either. He wasn't looking forward to finding out. Silver, however, was a different story. As long as she possessed his ghost half, she could be trapped in the Fenton Thermos. What he would do with her after he caught her, he didn't know. He would figure it out when he got there.

Rifle in hand and Fenton Thermos slung over his back, he set off again. He felt very out of his depth, and he was more scared than he had ever been in his life, but he had to do something. If he didn't stop Silver, who would?

* * *

A/N: Ah, so much better. To not actually answer a question since that would be against rules, the missing element was terror. Without his humanity, Danny can't be scared. It was a good idea, I still think, but the point of this little trilogy is to scare the tar out of him and make him question reality and his own morality. He can't do that if he can't feel emotion.

So, in my attempt to salvage the situation, I came up with varying ideas that simply wound up making it worse. At least, from my point of view. I wasn't having fun; that's why I've been updating so slowly of late. Well, after New Years. It's always hectic around Christmas, but the past couple weeks, I've just been too lazy because I wasn't having fun. This is better. nodnod


	4. Chapter Three

The quiet humming sounded unnaturally loud in dark stillness. Danny stopped as he realized that he had been singing Brittney Spears in his nervousness. Sam would have skinned him alive for that if she'd been there.

As if on cue, a remnant of the goth in question appeared in the road ahead. "Sam…" Danny whispered without realizing it. Even though he knew it wasn't real, the sight of her besieged by slayers made him cry out.

_It never gets old_.

"Leave me alone," the boy muttered, starting forward again. In an attempt to take his mind off the horrifying scene, he decided to think about a theory he had formulated.

_But it's so much fun to tease you,_ amante, Silver protested.

It would be easier to focus on not seeing Sam die if she would stop projecting images of Sam dying into his head. Kat had theorized that Silver was psychically deaf, which would explain her inability to read minds. Some physically deaf people were capable of speech; likewise, Silver could project. She just couldn't receive.

This, of course-

_You need to play with me! Say something and play with me._

This, of course, brought up the point that-

A loud shriek split the air. It drove Danny to his knees and filled his ears until he thought he would go deaf. Around him, glass windows shattered and bits of various structures crumbled. It broke off as quickly as it began, and Silver dove into view, laughing.

"I like your powers!" she announced, hovering. She looked extremely exhausted from the brief Ghostly Wail, which Danny noted with some satisfaction. She might have been a super-powerful psychic, but he was still better with the ghost powers.

He stood, rubbing his abused ears, to demand, "What have you done with my friends?"

"And family," she corrected, alighting on the ground. "Wouldn't want to leave them out, after all, would I?" _They're safe…for now._ She vanished from sight with a self-satisfied smirk to leave Danny with the image of every single person he cared about in the whole city being hanged from the edge of the clock tower.

He blasted at the place where she had vanished for a few moments until he remembered that he had the Fenton Thermos slung across his back. That would have been an excellent time to use it. He slapped his forehead in irritation at himself. Why did he let her get to him like that? Maybe Technus was right: emotion was nothing but a weakness.

A flash of light against metal got him moving again. There were only a few things that could be responsible for such a sight, and he wasn't keen on meeting any of them. Except his mom, or maybe Valerie. They would be good to have around. Both would be even better.

Oh, who was he kidding? Either one of them would still be a better choice than him. Maybe humans weren't useless, but he was. He was so used to being half ghost that he had forgotten what it was like to not have powers. Sure, there had been that little stint when he split himself to take care of Technus and still hang out with his friends, but that didn't really count. Or maybe it did.

No, it really didn't. He hadn't been trying to defeat Technus armed only with his sorry excuse for cunning and a weapon that might not even work. It really was pathetic. Did he honestly think he was going to succeed at this?

Something rattled to his left; he whirled around to see a cat digging around a trash can and lowered his weapon. He had to laugh at himself. Really, he was just way too jumpy. As he turned to go, the cat yowled in fear and pain, a sound that was abruptly replaced by a crash. Danny yelled in surprise and turned back to see the poor creature's tail disappear between the fangs of a sickly-yellow gorger.

The thing stomped forward, its piggy-eyes fixed on the boy. Danny gulped and forced his legs to carry him backwards. Faced with an actual malefactor at last, his little toy gun seemed woefully inadequate. He continued to back away until the creature howled and charged forward. He yelled in response and began firing at random. It was probably a miracle that he hit his target.

Looking down at the creature's twitching corpse, he was torn between joy that Maddie's weapon worked and throwing up from fear-reaction. Sadly, his stomach made up his mind for him as it decided to empty its contents. After a few minutes' illness, he staggered on his way.

"Lucky shot…" whispered something from everywhere at once. He turned in increasingly panicked circles, but Darwin was nowhere to be found.

"I'm not afraid of you!" the boy announced, his voice shaking. Receiving only harsh laughter, he started to go and slammed face first into his tormentor. All he saw was a set of shark's teeth, and that was more than enough. He started running.

"A weak child," Darwin said. "You won't live long in thisss world." Danny didn't try to reply, focused as he was on escape. After a while, he realized that some slayers had taken up the chase and Darwin was gone.

They were just slayers. He could handle slayers. After the way his mother's ecto-rifle had taken care of that gorger, the slayers would be a breeze. It was stopping that he was having trouble with, but he was going to have to do something quickly; they were catching up.

Steeling his nerves, he about-faced and started blasting. There were only three of them, fortunately. They went down quickly. He turned away so as not to look at the convulsing remains and came face to face with that horrible grinning maw, once again.

Darwin licked the points of his teeth and stared hungrily at the frightened boy. "Ssstarving…" he hissed. "Ravenousss…"

"L-l-leave me alone!" Danny exclaimed, backing away.

"Maybe not asss weak asss I thought. Frightened, yesss, but ssstrong. I like a good fighter. They made my job more interesssting."

The creature made no effort to move forward, so they merely stared at each other for a while. Danny had a feeling, based on Silver's vision, that he needed to get to the clock tower, but his legs didn't seem to want to move. After a few eternities, Darwin chuckled darkly and vanished. "I'll be watching you…" he informed the boy.

Somehow, the boy found that less than reassuring.

A light dusting of fog along the ground gave the world of surreal look. The few streetlamps that were still in working order almost made it worse. At least in the relative darkness, the fog didn't look like the Malice. Above, dark clouds had blotted out most of the stars. They crawled across the moon like grasping claws. Danny repressed a shudder and decided he would rather stare at his feet, after all.

So, because Silver couldn't read his mind, she couldn't have known that he was thinking about Sam. He remembered a discussion his parents had been having about how some things that were mistaken for ghosts were really just memories that had been imprinted on a place. He had experienced the phenomena before, in Carnate and Baltimore.

He had, at some point, found himself wondering if Silver was, in fact, responsible for the memories that were dredged up occasionally. Since she couldn't have known what he was thinking, she couldn't have known to show him that particular image. She may have expounded on it once it appeared, but it had been caused by something else.

His theory was that he had caused the image to appear. Like people who saw those memories left in "haunted" houses, his thoughts had triggered a response in the environment. He didn't know what caused it; he was no scientist. But it seemed to make sense.

Something moved in the fog around his feet. It had been for some time, but he hadn't paid much attention. Everything seemed alive, and it was all out to get him, or so his mind tried to convince him. This was different, though. Although there was barely an inch of fog, he thought he saw someone looking up at him from beneath it. That was impossible, of course.

Of course, so was everything going on. Danny started to run, but he had waited just a bit too long. A hand reached up and grabbed his ankle.

* * *

"_Silver Devil!" she taunted the white haired girl. She knew Meryll hated that name, which is why she used it at every opportunity. A few of the boys had made it up._

_Meryll glared and started to pout. "Why are you always picking on me?" she whined, taking a few steps closer._

"_Why not? You're a freak."_

_The girl looked up to meet her eyes; suddenly, she seemed very dangerous. "Uncle Hermes says people like you are worthless."_

"_Hermes is a freak, too," she retaliated, though not quite as bravely as before. She backed away until her heels touched the edge of the river._

_Meryll smirked and lunged forward, knocking her backwards into the water and holding her there. The last thing she saw was a wavering pair of satisfied blue eyes.

* * *

_

Danny finally managed to fight his way free and started blasting at the drowned girl. Although it didn't seem to do any good, it did frighten the creature into leaving. Maybe. Maybe it was a coincidence.

He needed to sit down.

Logically, he knew there were people like Silver in the world. Jazz had given him a rather lengthy lecture on the subject of anti-social behavior, preparing for some speech or other. He hadn't paid much attention, but he did remember something about how it couldn't be cured, and how children who suffered the condition often began with killing small animals.

He wondered how different she would be if Haight hadn't become her mentor. Would they be here now, playing this psychotic game? Or had his presence merely hastened the inevitable? It was no sense trying to figure out who or what to blame at that point, but he couldn't help but wonder.


	5. Chapter Four

Ever since the accident that made him half ghost, Danny had acquired a sort of sixth sense. It wasn't his ghost sense, which only went off when ghosts were near. It was something else, a feeling that all people who deal with danger on a regular basis acquire after a while. It was a soft prickling on the back of his neck that almost made his hair stand on end.

Someone, or something, was watching him. As strange as it sounded, he hoped it was just Darwin. He knew that creature, now, and though he could handle seeing him again. He wasn't sure how he would react to something new, but previous experience told him it wouldn't go well.

Where had his nerve gone? Where was his stubborn determination? It was left with his ghost half, of course, leaving him to cower in the shelter of a doorway. About ten feet away, a gorger slurped at the remains of a creature that looked like a human/cat hybrid might if it were hit by a semi doing eighty miles an hour, then stuffed and sewn back together by a three-year-old who had no idea what anatomy was and thought it would be fun to add a few extra limbs.

It had an arm sticking out the top of its head.

It had been an hour since Silver last bothered him. Staring at the…catman, he almost missed her, if only for the familiarity. Unfortunately, while she was absent, her two pet marksmen were not. Cobra and Mongoose, the malefactor representations of her favored colt handguns of the same names, had been on a nonstop rampage.

If Danny had been brave enough, he would have leaned out and started firing while they took aim, but his backbone was gone with Phantom. He had the distinct impression that Silver was out there, laughing at him from some invisible vantage. "Why me?" he muttered, leaning his head against the brick.

The sound of gunfire slowly faded away as the marksmen chased some other bizarre creature. After a few minutes, the boy dared to peek around his corner and was gratified to see that they really were gone. It was a good thing, too; his imagination had him convinced that something was whispering right behind him. He started to stand, and a pair of hazy hands clamped around his face, obscuring his vision. "Guess who…" the apparition whispered.

Danny fought off the darkness that threatened to engulf him and managed to pull free to start running. Behind him, the thing emerged from the wall and laughed faintly. "Don't run away," it whispered, proving that the Malice was vaguely aware of some things at least.

He ran harder. The last thing he wanted was to live through another person's death. The first two had been bad enough. A hand caught him on the shoulder, but he managed to shrug it off. He was tired, and he was slowing down. There had to be some way to get rid of it.

Left with not much in the way of options, he turned and started blasting. Unlike the drowned girl, however, this one didn't even stop. He continued to back away from the headless boy, but it was a hopeless cause.

_He chased her down the wooded incline, laughing all the while. He loved to make her mad; actually, he thought she was kind of cool, for a girl._

Danny fought his way free again. "Leave me alone!" he yelled as though it would possibly do any good.

"Don't run away," the boy whispered again.

* * *

"_Don't run away!" he taunted. "I just want to play with you!"_

"_You're not ready for my game," she replied from somewhere nearby and made him jump. He hadn't realized she was so close._

"_You're such a freak, Silver Devil."_

"_Do you really want to play with me?"_

_He shouted and whirled around to find her just behind him. With an exasperated scoff, he rolled his eyes. "What are we playing? House?"_

"_No," she replied, a strange smile on her face. "We're playing this." She lifted an axe from the nearby woodshed and swung.

* * *

_

"No!" Danny yelled, cringing fearfully. He stumbled backwards and started running again. He passed a pack of slayers that were too busy to give chase and a horde of gorgers that simply couldn't catch him. Finally, however, he tripped over something and went sprawling across the concrete. He couldn't move; he could barely breathe. It was a long time before he realized that he must have managed to lose his pursuer.

A pair of dilapidated work boots appeared in his field of vision, but he was too exhausted to care. The boots shifted slightly as the wearer got down on his knees and a pair of wrinkled, claw-like hands landed on the pavement to either side of his head.

He wanted to move, but his body didn't want to obey. It lay right where it was despite his increasingly panicked commands to get up. He shuddered involuntarily as Darwin sniffed at his hair like a dog might. No, it was more like a pig might.

"I can sssmell your fear," the gluttonous creature confided. "It sssmells so sssweet."

"Go away," Danny muttered weakly.

Darwin stood again, and the boy actually thought he was going to comply. Then those claws dug into his side, and he found himself hoisted into the air and thrown over the creature's shoulder. "What are you going to do?" he asked fearfully.

"You're not ssstrong enough. I will add your ssstrength to my own."

It took a few minutes for him to realize what that meant. As soon as it clicked, he was suddenly inspired to move again. "You don't want to eat me!" he protested, trying to kick free. "I don't taste good! I swear!"

"Little boysss are the sssweetest of all," Darwin argued. His amused tone had the effect of causing the boy to redouble his efforts. The skeletal malefactor was surprisingly strong, but Danny managed to kick him in the head with a knee and break away. He dashed the few feet to his dropped weapon, then turned and started firing.

The rifle might not work on the Malice, but it was wonderfully effective against the cannibal. Darwin cried out and tried to protect himself with his bare arms, but it didn't work out. After a few more shots hit, he simply vanished. "You confussse me," he whispered from nowhere. "I think that I want you."

Danny sighed and mumbled, "Get in line." It seemed like every time he turned around, some new villain was trying to kill him. Or, in this case, eat him. It got really old, really quickly. He glanced around and was forced to sigh again. In all the running, he had gotten turned around and ran away from the clock tower. He turned in the appropriate direction and started walking.

What if the headless boy was up there?

After a moment's indecision, he kept going. He would deal that when he got there. He was tired of the constant fear he felt. He was a Fenton, darn it; he shouldn't be so scared, but it was all he could do not to run all the way home and lock himself in the lab.

He wished Jazz was there, or his parents. Really, he wished everyone was there so he could go home. He was tired and scared and…

He closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears as Jazz appeared in the road. It didn't really help to blot out the screaming as she was set upon by mainliners. The hospital was about a block away. He tried to focus on it and failed miserably.

"Don't run away!" called a voice. Danny gave a panicked gasp and started running again. He didn't even bother to look around to see how far away the headless boy was; he ran straight into the hospital in the hopes that he could-

* * *

"…_And this is the electric chair, where Horace died," Meryll was saying. "He died the day I was born."_

"_Wow…" he breathed. "Can I sit in it?"_

"_I don't think you should do that," Diego interjected uncomfortably._

_The white haired girl laughed brightly. "You're no fun! Let's play executioner! Kev, you can be the victim."_

_He hooted with joy and jumped into the chair while Meryll led her boyfriend into the control room. After the initial novelty subsided, however, he squirmed uncomfortably. Maybe this wasn't the best idea. People did say that Meryll might have killed that-_

_The pain was all-encompassing. The last thing he remembered was one of the inmates standing before him with a very sad look in his eyeless face.

* * *

_

Danny fell and scrambled backwards as the boy called Kev reached out to catch him again. This was getting ridiculous; the things were everywhere. They were even worse than the malefactors. At least he could destroy them.

He ran to the door of the hospital, but the headless boy met him there. He couldn't get past, so he dodged around Kev and ran deeper into the apparently abandoned halls. He saw a few faces peeking out from behind doors that slammed shut as he drew near. Not that he could blame them. He certainly wouldn't want anyone running from the Malice to get to close to him. It was practically suicide.

A mainliner wandered into view, and he destroyed it before turning down the hall it had come from. Immediately, he tripped over someone's leg and slid along the wet floor. "Sorry," he gasped as he regained his feet. There was a second exit up ahead. The door had been torn off its hinges, but the culprit seemed to have moved on. He dashed beneath a still-working light and out the door.

Suddenly, something shrieked behind him. Had he been thinking, he would have kept running. Since he was only reacting, he stumbled to a stop and turned. The two parts of Malice hovered helplessly just beyond the light. They couldn't stand the florescent light? Even slayers didn't mind that, as long as it wasn't too bright. Danny grinned and wondered where the nearest nice, big flashlight might be. He set off at a more leisurely pace to find one.

He started to walk with his head down, a sign of his exhaustion, and noticed that he was covered in something red. After a moment, he realized what it was and what he had tripped over. The fear threatened to overwhelm him again, but he pushed it firmly out of mind and resolved to find some new clothes in addition to the flashlight. He wasn't sure how long he'd be able to ignore the sticky, wet blood, and he didn't much want to find out.

* * *

A/N: You know, I really hate that horizontal rule. I prefer just using an extra space because having this huge line across the screen is very distracting to me. Oh well. 


	6. Chapter Five

Gunfire ricocheted off the metal dumpster or embedded itself in the brick. After a few moments, it stopped, and Danny carefully leaned out to return fire. He was all-too aware of the white haired ghost hovering above him, but Silver seemed content to simply watch as he finally destroyed her pets.

"Well done, _amante_," she quietly praised.

He would almost rather she spoke telepathically. At least then, he didn't have to listen to someone else controlling his voice. "Why are you doing this?" he sighed. He continued to not actually look at her as he retrieved his mini searchlight and made sure it was still undamaged.

"I want to play with you," she gave her canned response. "I'm so lonely."

"You've said that before. Maybe if you didn't kill everyone you met, you wouldn't be."

_I kill them so that I won't be._ Her voice came accompanied by an image of her astral form surrounded by the souls that made up the Malice. _But I know now, I've been looking for you. They don't matter anymore; you're my soul mate. We'll be together forever._

Danny shuddered involuntarily at the thought.

"Am I really so bad?" Silver asked curiously. "There's a voice in my head that calls me a monster. It sounds like you, but you can't project. I know that. The voice says I hurt you. Isn't that the point?"

"You're not human," the boy dared to reply. "You wouldn't understand."

"I used to be human."

"You were never human!" he exclaimed, rounding on her angrily. "You kill people for no reason! You torture them for fun! You're worse than the ghosts!"

Silver flinched and disappeared. _There are worse things than me, you know._

After a few minutes, Danny started to shake from a delayed fear reaction. He couldn't imagine what had possessed him, but for a few minutes, he almost felt like his old self again. He decided it must have been his proximity to his other half. The same thing had happened last time he split himself in half, when his two selves had finally stopped bickering and worked together to beat Technus.

Something moved in the rising fog. He shined the light on it and was rewarded by a slayer's cry of pain before it burst into flames.

So that's what happened when the light was too bright for them. He smiled slightly and shined it on the other two that appeared, achieving the same reaction. Suddenly, he felt a little better about this adventure. So, naturally, a streetlamp exploded to his left and made him jump.

Kat liked to explode streetlamps. One day, she went around town just blowing up streetlamps and scaring everyone. It wasn't quite as bad as some of his enemies' rampages since she was making an effort not to hurt anyone, but he had still been forced to catch her in the Fenton Thermos. He finally let her out an hour later and demanded to know what that was all about. Her excuse? Boredom.

She may not have been a ghost in the most technical sense of the word, but she was in every other way. He wondered how Silver was keeping her…

Kat was an astral projection. She was more ghost-like than Silver, but she was still weak against a good jolt. He didn't know if that if that would apply to his current dilemma, but it was worth thinking about.

Something moved in the corner of his vision. He shined the light there, but there was nothing to see. After a moment, he decided it was his imagination and moved on.

He just couldn't help but wonder if Kat was stronger than Silver. The psychic could be visible, but Kat had learned to be audible as well. But then, why couldn't she break free and get rid of Silver? Maybe they just had different abilities…

The thing moved again on his other side. Once again, he shined the light; and once again, there was nothing to see. He was starting to become very scared, not that he wasn't already. It was simply getting more difficult to keep that fear at bay again. It had to be the Malice. The malefactors were considerably more straightforward.

He clutched his searchlight in a tighter grip and turned to make sure there was nothing behind him. It wasn't until he turned back around that he found it.

* * *

"_Don't you get it, Mer? She's dead."_

"_Mother isn't dead. She's right here."_

_He sighed in exasperation and put a hand to his forehead. Ever since Adrianna died, their daughter had been acting…strangely. To put it mildly. As though she had something to hide. True, she had been the one to find the body, but…_

_She had been holding her pillow. There had been flecks of blood on it, just like around her mother's mouth. But he couldn't believe she had killed her own mother. It just wasn't…_

"_Why do you come out here, anyway?" he asked, trying to steer away from that line of thought. "I thought you didn't like to be alone."_

"_I'm never alone, father," she answered, standing. "All my friends are with me."_

_That was another thing. The people had started to talk. He couldn't believe it was more than a horrible coincidence, but all her friends had died, and gruesomely at that. He couldn't believe it, but…_

"_Meryll, what have you done?"_

_She stood and turned at last to display her work. She was holding a chisel in one hand and one of her grandfather's silver plated colts in the other. On the barrel, she had inscribed a winding serpent. "Do you like it? His name is Cobra. I'm going to draw a weasel on the other one…or maybe a mongoose. You know, after Riki Tiki Tavi?"_

_He grabbed her shoulders, alarmed by sudden change of subject. "Meryll, answer me! What have you done?"_

"_I don't want to be alone. So I make sure I'm not."_

_He never even heard the gunshot.

* * *

_

Danny stumbled back as the thing released him in favor of shielding itself from the light. It made a whistling sort of squeal, the only noise it was capable of with the gaping hole in its throat. The boy couldn't bring himself to think of it with any kind of proper noun; it was more…more something than the others. Violent, maybe? Or maybe just less human? Whatever it was, it was stronger; the light seemed more like an annoyance than harmful. It didn't try to get closer, but it didn't back away, either.

He edged around it, taking care to keep light on it at all times, then tried to back away with tripping over anything or crashing into malefactors. Fortunately, the Malice's presence seemed to have forced them away or something.

He noticed the light was shaking most alarmingly, then realized that it was because he was shaking. His legs felt like they were about to give about, just like when the drowned girl had attacked. There was another one right behind him. He could feel it. He was afraid to turn, afraid to find out for sure.

Something thudded to the ground and startled him into turning. Silver's father took the opportunity to rush forward; something yellow hit the ground just behind it. The next few seconds passed in blind fear and confusion and ended with Darwin standing in front of two glowing gorger captains.

Danny was under no illusions as to why the spirit of insatiable hunger had rescued him. He turned to run, and two gorgers of the normal variety jumped from out of nowhere into his path.

"No!" yelled his own voice from somewhere above. An ectoplasmic energy blast hit one of the creatures while the other was lifted into the air and thrown into a wall. "_El_ _niño es el mio_!"

"What?" Darwin demanded. "What gibberish isss thisss?"

Danny didn't wait around to see the rest of that battle, but he couldn't help but overhear the mental rejoinder, _No one betrays Silver!_

He eventually stopped to catch his breath and look around. The clock was in sight now, at last. All he had to do was make it that far. He thought he heard a crack, or maybe a boom. Whatever it was, it was quickly driven out of mind by the whistling noise that sped past his ear to be followed by sound of something very small striking concrete at a very high speed.

He didn't actually remember throwing himself behind the car, but he must have done so. He peeked careful around its fender and was rewarded by another bullet that grazed the tip of his nose. He jerked back, astounded by how much that actually hurt.

And the Malice was back. This day just got better and better. He could sit where he was and get…Maliced again, or he could run and get shot. Relive someone's death, or experience his own…decisions. In the end, it was the simple fact that Silver's father was actually about to touch him again that decided him. Again, he didn't actually remember making a conscious decision to run; he simply found himself dodging gunfire on the way to a small alley.

Thank goodness for self-preservation instincts.

He looked back and could have kicked himself for doing so, but the Malice seemed to have become distracted by the gunfire. He sighed in relief and slowed down. Although he needed to get farther away, his legs had turned to jelly. He sat down on an overturned crate and dropped his head into his hands.

This wasn't going well. He couldn't beat Silver; what was he thinking? He should give up and let the Malice take him. It would be easier. He leaned back. "What am I doing?" he muttered.

His attention was arrested by a cable above his head. It came out of a window and traveled towards the roof, so it must have belonged to a cable television, or maybe a telephone. That didn't matter, really. He wouldn't even have noticed it if it hadn't started to spark. Suitably unnerved, he decided that he had rested long enough and went to find a way to the clock tower that wouldn't get him shot.

* * *

A/N: _/headdesk/_ This was done yesterday. I thought I posted it. Oops. You get two now. 


	7. Chapter Six

It was quiet, and had been for some time. There was a heavy feeling in the misty air, as though the entire world was looking down to see what would happen. Danny crept through the small building, alert for anything that might decide to jump out at him. Somehow, the lack of attacks had not steadied his nerves any.

It had to be a clothing store, didn't it? It had seemed like a good idea at the time, to use the various businesses as cover. The actual practice, however, had only succeeded in proving that mannequins are scary. Everywhere he looked, vaguely humanoid shadows stood in poses that seemed unnatural in the darkness. The ones that lacked limbs or heads were the worst.

If he ever got out of this alive, he decided, he was going to write a movie script about it. He'd make millions.

Did that mannequin just move?

He was almost relieved to see a mainliner crawl out from behind it, providing a semi-rational explanation. The creature yanked a glowing, pale blue syringe out of its back and threw it, but Danny had already dodged and returned fire. Even without his ghost powers, they were little more than an annoyance. He idly wondered what they represented here, then remembered that they could only come out if there was a sufficiently-sized pool of liquid on the ground. Not much wanting to see another ravaged corpse, he angled away from the area.

That poor homeless man…that sight would haunt the boy for years. It hadn't been quite as bad as the headless colonel from Carnate, but he had seen this one happen…watched the man beg for mercy as one of those catmen had skinned him alive. He'd been too scared to get any closer.

What was that whispering? Oh, it was just the sound of his own ragged breathing.

Wasn't it?

No. No it wasn't. He quietly ran as another soul from the Malice drifted into view. It didn't seem to have noticed him yet, and he didn't want to give it the chance. There was a door ahead; before he could run through, the "Exit" sign above exploded into sparks. He had just enough time to see Adrianna shuffle past and notice him, and then he was running back the way he came without a care that he was making too much noise.

"Don't run away," whispered the headless boy as he appeared in Danny's path. He shouted and about-faced to run the other way, and nearly crashed into the one that started all this, a creature with half its head missing.

He slid beneath it, dodged around Adrianna, shot another mainliner, and finally made it through the "Exit" door. A fight broke out somewhere behind him; it sounded as though the mainliners weren't fond of the Malice. With a relieved sigh, he slowed to a walk.

He was out in the open again, but as long as he hugged the wall, he thought he would be okay. He couldn't actually see the clock tower from there, which meant that the invisible sniper couldn't see him.

_You're not yourself,_ amante.

He flashed his searchlight on a slayer that dropped into his path and didn't answer. He was trying not to think of his family since that brought up remnants and memories of them, but he was getting lonely. Right then, Skulker would have been welcome company. In fact, even Vlad would have been an improvement.

_Why don't you talk to me anymore?_ Silver all but whined. _I'm lonely! Don't leave me alone!_

An image flashed across his mind of Silver chained to the wall in the basement of Killjoy's asylum while Diego walked away. She was trying to convince him to pity her, and he wasn't going to oblige. What he wanted to know was why she was doing this? He didn't understand at all. She called him _amante_, lover; she had said in Baltimore that she had fallen in love with him. At least, he thought she had. She had said it in Spanish, so he wasn't sure exactly. Still, it just didn't make sense. He was fourteen, for one. And torturing people was not how a person showed love.

He needed to talk to an expert on the human mind. Sadly, with Jazz kidnapped, there was only one person he could talk to. And Killjoy was as insane as Silver. Did he really need to know Silver's motive to beat her?

On the other hand, simply giving her a sound thrashing like he did to his other enemies didn't seem to work. She just kept coming back. Maybe if he knew what motivated her, he could reason with her. Or at least figure out how to stop her for good.

The fear started to come back; she must have left. She was almost becoming desperate for his attention, or so it seemed. He hadn't noticed it at first, but ever since he tried to use the Fenton Thermos on her a while back, she had grown increasingly…

Panicked? That was the only word he could think to use. She was freaking out, or something. Whatever his ghost half was telling her, it must have been pretty bad to do that to her. He wasn't sure he liked that thought.

A soul from the Malice appeared; it disappeared with a shrill screech when he turned the light on it. That was easy; that was so easy, it made him nervous. The Malice never went down that quickly. He looked around fearfully.

Flickering streetlamp, rising fog, slayer, slayer…Those were easily dealt with, at least. He briefly wondered why they were so populous, then he found the soul.

She reminded him of Julia, the broken-necked water spirit that had once tried to possess Jazz. Her face was smashed beyond all recognition; her head hung at an odd angle. All this, he would notice later however, as he was then too busy struggling against the encroaching darkness and the hands that held him.

* * *

_She looked wildly at the surrounding blaze and tried to convince herself that those burning children she saw weren't really there. It didn't help that Meryll was trying to shoot them with those horrid guns of her. "Meryll!" she called. "We have to go!"_

"_Go, then," the woman laughed. "I'm having fun."_

"_You're out here in your nightgown shooting things that aren't even there. We're going to get caught in the fire!"_

"_You're no fun."_

_She clenched her teeth and fists, then walked up to slap her brother's wife across the face. "I don't know what Diego sees in you, but you're evil."_

_Meryll holstered one weapon to hold her hand over the reddened cheek and smiled. "So you do like to play my game," she muttered. She holstered the other weapon and raised her arm into the air. In response, a burning log levitated up to eye level._

_She gasped and staggered back. She couldn't possibly be seeing what she thought. Then the log flew straight at her; she was too amazed to duck.

* * *

_

Danny sank to his knees, to weary to fight anymore. Sister-in-law continued to grasp his shoulders, as though she could drain his very life. In fact, that's exactly what it felt like. He needed to run; he wanted to run. He just couldn't seem to muster the energy.

Something screamed, but he didn't care until a glowing blue blade impaled the Malice and yanked it off of him. He didn't immediately feel better, but he did mange to stand. He just hoped the malefactors and the Malice kept each other busy enough; he didn't think he could run.

"Psst!"

He yelled and spun around to see someone peeking out of the doorway of a small mission. The person motioned him inside; he was only too happy to oblige. "What are you doing out there?" the priest gently demanded. He pressed a mug of hot chocolate into the boy's hands. "Here. Now, come and sit down. You look half dead."

That was almost funny, and Danny realized that he was close to hysteria. He wondered how long he'd been at that point. It was with numb gratefulness that he dropped into a folding chair and let a kindly woman drape a blanket around him. He didn't pay much attention as the two quietly chattered at him. They seemed to realize that since they didn't say anything more than quiet nothings designed to be comforting.

A cheery fire burned nearby, surrounded by a motley crew of beggars and vagrants. They were terrified, every last one of them. It must have taken some courage to let him in. He sighed happily and answered a few questions, although most of his attention was elsewhere.

The lights still worked here. That was good to see. It would keep most of the malefactors away. He stared blankly into the fire, safe at last. He thought he would just stay there. He could stay forever…

"I have to go," he muttered.

"Oh, no!" the woman exclaimed. "You're not going back out there. You'll get your little self killed."

He shook his head slowly and stood. "I'm halfway there already," he sighed, ignoring the looks of worried bewilderment. "Those things are coming after me. If I stay, you'll all be killed."

The priest looked like he was object, but he was interrupted by frightened gasps as the fluorescent lighting flickered alarmingly. "Get him out of here!" cried someone who had been close enough to hear.

Danny handed him the blanket and now-empty mug and smiled. "Thank you. You really did help. But I have to go."

He might have continued to protest; the boy didn't pay any attention. He wanted to stay, but he had to leave. He knew he had to leave. He was the only one who could end this.


	8. Chapter Seven

The floor, walls, and ceiling were covered in pinprick slayer-prints. What few lights still worked flickered like dying candles. The plumbing must have exploded at some point because the carpet was submerged in about an inch of water, which trickled down the walls from the ceiling. Doors hung off their hinges to reveal the leavings of a hasty evacuation and, in some cases, owners who refused to leave. They were not something to be observed for long.

The apartment building was in a near direct line with the clock tower. Sneaking along one of the outside walls would have been asking to be shot, so the only recourse was to cut straight through. Once he got to the other side, he didn't know what would happen.

A faint groan came from under the floor. The boy wasn't sure whether he would rather it was a malefactor responsible, or a simple weakening of the building's structural integrity. As unenthused as he was to meet yet another monster, he didn't much want to fall through the floor and break his legs either.

Something squealed, and a mainliner dragged itself up out of the standing water. It had just enough time to look around in mild confusion before it was blasted to the floor. Danny held his breath to step around the lethal toxin that rose from its body before resuming his uneasy journey.

Anemic shadows played on the walls as a faint yellow light emanated from one of the rooms. He was somewhat grateful for the warning that Killjoy was about to announce his presence. At that point, he was almost grateful for Killjoy. "We meet again, my boy!" the doctor declared jovially. "Tell me, lad. How are you holding up, hm?"

After a brief glance around the hall for more mainliners, Danny wandered into the room. The television screen had a baseball-sized hole in the middle of it, and its power cord had been broken. And yet, it miraculously managed to display Killjoy's office, this time complete with a window in the background. Carnate was apparently suffering a tropical storm or something.

The boy shrugged listlessly. "I'm tired."

"Perfectly understandable. It has been a rather trying day, has it not?"

Danny shrugged again. In truth, most of his exhaustion was caused by the constant feeling of terror, but he had a feeling that Killjoy knew that already. He seemed to know everything. To that end, he sighed and asked, "Are those people going to be okay?"

"I cannot predict the future, my boy," the doctor replied, almost kindly, it seemed. "But I can tell you that they are well enough for now. However, if something is not done…" He trailed off; there was no need to state the implications.

"How do I beat her?"

Killjoy shook his head. "No, lad. That is something you must find out for yourself, I'm afraid. I can, however, help you to reach your destination." The screen flickered out. He heard a quiet "chink", the noise of metal lightly striking metal. Danny whirled around to face the door as a slayer growled, but there was nothing there.

Suddenly, his quarry dropped right in front of him. He wasn't even given a chance to dodge as the sodden floor collapsed and dropped them both into the basement. The thing squealed in pain as it was impaled by a broken metal pipe. Fortunately, the boy landed in a laundry cart, more or less unharmed. He took a moment to glare at the hole in the ceiling as he got to his feet, then looked around and decided he would rather have been dodging bullets.

His ears were filled by a rumbling noise, and he could barely see his feet for the heavy fog. His light cut through it relatively well, but it also made it seem alive. Or maybe it was alive. He'd long since stopped trying to figure out why Killjoy did the things he did; instead, he concentrated on trying to find the stairs. He could just see a flickering light that he hoped was near them. At the very least, it might take him closer to a wall that he could follow around.

Why couldn't he chase Silver through a sunlit park? A field of daisies maybe? Knowing her, she'd find a way to make even that terrifying.

Thinking of Silver…she hadn't bothered him in some time. He wondered if she was waiting for something. Maybe his ghost half had finally gotten to her and convinced her to stop. Of course, that brought up the question of why this was still going on.

It was a generator. Of course, it wasn't the stairs. That would have been too easy. It growled and shook while electricity ran up and down its metal form. As the boy approached, it made a sound like a small explosion and jumped forward a few feet. He backed away, coughing from the thick smoke, and realized that the back of the thing had, in fact, exploded. It left a gaping hole in the wall that led to another cellar of some sort.

The timing was too perfect. Clearly he was supposed to go that way. The fog poured through the gap, almost like a tidal wave. It was as though there was a sentient force behind it, which wouldn't have surprised him in the slightest. He already had a sinking suspicious that was the case.

Something was whispering. He couldn't tell where it was coming from because noises had been dulled by the fog, but he thought it was the next room. After several minutes hesitation, he turned the light off, although he kept his finger on the switch. There was no sense letting the thing know he was there if it didn't already.

He could just see it, pacing back and forth. It seemed to be an adult male, unusually enough since most of the people Silver had killed were her childhood friends. It wasn't her father; he hadn't been capable of more than a wheeze. This one muttered to himself in Spanish, or so the boy surmised.

It had to be Diego.

Amante_, please, come out of there!_

The boy set his jaw and crept forward.

_Danny, listen to me. I am begging you. I will let everyone go if you will just come out of there._

It was a very tempting offer, especially since she sounded as terrified as he felt. He continued; it would have been stupid to believe her. Although, most of his mind was engaged in trying to convince him that it was stupid not to. It sounded like his voice, but he couldn't be sure. Silver was good at planting suggestions.

So. She was close enough to see him, but too far away for his ghost half's presence to get rid of the fear. That seemed important, and he had to squash down the urge to just turn tail and run. Was it possible she was serious? He was given no further chance to contemplate as the image of himself from what must have been the stairs flashed across his mind. Closing in on him from behind was Diego.

_Please, just run!_

He glanced back fearfully to see that she had been serious. He screamed and tried to run, but only succeeded in tripping over his feet. The thing that had once been Diego Santiago grabbed for his ankle, but he managed to scramble out of the way and regain his feet.

There was light ahead; it reminded him that he was holding a potential weapon. He clicked the flashlight on again and held it behind him, trying to aim for Diego without actually turning. He heard a screech, his foot hit something, and he was flying through air to slam hard into a concrete wall.

His vision slowly stopped swimming around while his brain tried to remember what sense was and the role it played in his life. Sadly, it figured it out, and informed him that he had split his forehead open and was in a great deal of pain. It also took the opportunity to remind him that the Malice was right behind him.

He hauled himself to his feet and plastered himself to the wall before he realized that he was standing in a surprisingly bright patch of light in what he assumed was another basement. Diego muttered to himself just beyond the light and had apparently forgotten all about the terrified boy that stood barely two feet away. He moved off again, and Danny relaxed slightly.

He seemed to have fallen through another broken wall into some L-shaped cubby hole. Although he was loath to move out of the light again, he wanted to get further away. There was considerably less fog in this basement; there was also no way out. The stairs had fallen down, and all the walls were perfectly intact. He slid down the nearest one to sit on the floor.

"I'm going to die down here!" he wailed. He certainly wasn't going to try going back through the last room.

"Oh, do pull yourself together, lad!" Killjoy admonished from nowhere in particular. "The answer is there; you have only to find it."

"I don't want to find it!" Danny protested. "I want someone to give it to me! I'm tired of this; I'm tired of her and you! I'm tired of being scared! I want my mom and dad!"

Part of him, deep in the back of his head, tried to ridicule him for the ten-year-old tantrum. It was drowned out by rest, which pointed out that he had reached the end of his rope. The two parts might have continued to bicker, but they were suddenly drawn together again by the appearance of two gorgers as they smashed through the opposite wall.

Danny lunged to his feet and fumbled with his ecto-rifle. He had slung it over his shoulder, mistakenly assuming he wouldn't need it anymore. It had been so long since he had seen the gorgers; he thought they were gone with…

Darwin…

"Thisss isss where I died," Darwin confided, an amused expression on his piggish face. He removed his floppy hat and held it over his heart, almost _in memoriam_, although his small black eyes were still fixed on Danny.

"Leave me alone," the boy commanded, holding the rifle on his enemy. His voice wasn't near as strong as he would have liked, and the malefactor seemed to find it even more amusing.

"She won't sssave you thisss time," he informed his prey. "She fearsss that one. It will come through the light to kill her.

Which completely explained her fearful reaction, although why she had tried to save him was still a mystery. Danny gulped and wondered if the odds that he made it out of here alive were very good. He decided he would rather not know. "I thought Silver got rid of you," he said in a vague attempt to stall for time.

Darwin apparently recognized the comment for what it was because he chuckled darkly and shook his head. "Fine. But only becaussse you'll be dead sssoon anyway. We fought. I won. I chossse to let her go becaussse she is ssstrong, though not as ssstrong asss me."

Maybe it was his superior attitude, which Danny had dealt with often enough to call as being false. Maybe it was Silver close enough to hear what was going on after all, who told him it was false. Either way, he had the distinct impression that Darwin was lying. Not that it really mattered.

He took a deep breath and started firing at one of the gorgers. Naturally, the other one lunged for him, and he started running along the wall to escape it. The rifle must have been more effective against the captain monsters than he realized since the first one was slowly writhing on the floor. He stopped to fire at the remaining one, then realized that Darwin had gone missing just as an arm wrapped tightly around his throat.

He swung the ecto-rifle around and heard a thwack as it connected with its target. As soon as the arm loosened, he slipped beneath it and ran for the collapsed section of wall. He heard a crash as Darwin knocked over some filing cabinets, and he was out of the police precinct's archives and into…

Well, he wasn't sure exactly. It looked like a cross between a cellar and a sewer. He didn't stop to figure it out until he realized that Darwin had abandoned the chase. It was as though there were certain places they couldn't go, except that he had just come from here. Maybe the greedy creature was toying with him, like a cat does a mouse. He sat down on a crate to rest and get his fear back under control.

He had wanted to be given the answer. Next time, he would be more careful with his wording.

* * *

A/N: It's come to my attention that I've taken my readers' knowledge of a subject somewhat for granted. I forgot that memories and remnants are my own theory of haunting, and you all might not have followed Danny's narrative. So here's a quick _/scoffs/_ explanation.

Think fragments of a Word document that you can still bring up if you set the folder to "show all hidden files".

A memory is a scene of extreme violence or emotion that has been imprinted on a certain place. Like how in some haunted hotels, people will claim to have seen ghosts reinacting their deaths.

A remnant is inherently the same thing, except that its just a person. What people usually term ghost. Sometimes, they just stand there looking at you. Sometimes they wander around if the emotion was strong enough.

If you subscribe to the theory that all things are connected, then you can surmise that the world is kind of psychic. A stray thought (program icon) can activate the memory or remnant (fragmented file) and replay it for whatever hapless soul happens to have dredged it up.


	9. Chapter Eight

Danny had no idea where he was, and only the vaguest notion that he was even traveling the right direction. The sewer was dark, even without the fog to obscure it. It was the perfect environment for slayers and mainliners, and he had left quite a trail of them behind him.

He was scared; he was tired; and his mind had him convinced that Diego was right behind him. Silver had gone back to not talking to him, but he had the impression that she was nearby since the fear was a little easier to deal with. She almost reminded him of lost puppy. He couldn't believe she was the same person who had tortured him so relentlessly on Carnate.

Something began to whine. After a moment, it rose to a wail that degenerated into racking sobs. The mini searchlight began to flicker. Danny banged on it a few times; he knew it couldn't be running out of batteries. He unconsciously quickened his pace.

"It's too dark!" cried a child's voice. "I'm scared of the dark!"

The echo made it impossible to tell which direction the voice was coming from, but he thought it was behind him. He hastened further, hoping to put as much distance between himself and the Malice as possible. The light continued to flicker, spending more time off than on until it finally went out completely. By then, Danny was running.

The fact that he couldn't see and might crash into something didn't even cross his mind. The batteries were still good; he knew they were. So why didn't the flashlight-

All he saw were pale glowing eyes, centimeters from his own.

* * *

"_It's awfully dark down there," he whispered._

_A hand descended on his head and a voice murmured into his ear, "They say it's bottomless. If you fall, you'll go straight through the earth."_

_He shuddered with only a touch of exaggeration. The thought of falling forever in that darkness was almost enough to make him wet himself. He smiled up into Meryll's cold blue eyes, happy she was there with him. He trusted her implicitly; ever since his brother's accident with the axe, she had taken care of him. She had even told him what happened to brother, even though he wasn't supposed to know. It had made him cry, but she had wiped away his tears._

_She had told him she could take him to see brother before bringing him here. But he didn't see brother anywhere. "Big sis?" he asked tentatively. "Where's brother?"_

_She took him by the shoulders and turned him so that his back was to the mineshaft. "Are you ready to see him?" At his nod, she smiled and tapped the side of her head. "He's up here."_

_The darkness closed around him. His last lesson was the meaning of betrayal.

* * *

_

The little boy let go and moved past. "I'm scared of the dark!" he cried. "Big sis! Why?"

Danny leaned against the concrete wall and listened to the child's plaintive wails. Why had the boy just let go like that?

"The innocence of a child…" intoned Killjoy's voice, startling a yelp out of the fourteen-year-old. "It's a spectacular thing, isn't it? Even after years of being trapped inside our dear Meryll's mind, his own psyche remains undistorted, unlike the others."

"He just wanted someone to listen," Danny muttered as his light flickered back on. Killjoy didn't answer, but he didn't need one.

Silver was a worse monster than he had given her credit for, apparently. He suddenly found himself wondering what might have happened if she had ever had children of her own. Doubtless, she would have killed them, too. Was it even remotely possible that she truly thought she had done these people a favor? Sadly, he thought it was.

What little pity he had begun to feel vanished again, although his ability to properly hate her seemed to have been left with his ghost half. He considered calling to her, fighting her right then, but that probably wouldn't have been very smart. He knew his family and friends were alive because that was part of the game. He also knew that she was the only reason they weren't dead. If he beat Silver before he reached the clock tower, he was relatively certain the sniper would just kill them.

With the little boy's soul again far enough away, slayers and mainliners should have begun to crawl out of the proverbial woodwork. The sewer was swarming with them before he showed up.

Then he heard the muttering. Diego had followed him.

He looked around frantically; it sounded like it was behind him, but so had the little boy. "Which way?" he whined. The panic was almost enough to overwhelm him, especially since Silver had fled again. He screamed as something grabbed him around the ankle, but it was only the drowned girl. He managed to shake her off and started running.

He was completely turned around; he couldn't remember which way he had been going, or where he'd come from. The drowned girl made another grab for his ankle, then froze and withdrew. He didn't want to turn around. He knew in the same manner of five-year-olds everywhere that if he didn't see it, it didn't exist. Unfortunately, that rule only applies to the monsters that aren't there.

"_Tú puta malo_," Diego mumbled. He was still a few feet away; Danny started running.

He had to get back above ground. He didn't know what he would do when he got there, but he had to. He couldn't take the confines anymore. Light glinted off metal, and the boy threw himself onto the ladder. His sudden climbing dexterity would have put a monkey to shame. At the top, he shoved at the manhole cover, growing increasingly frantic. Something brushed his leg; with a strength born of terror and dread, he gave one last shove and tumbled out into the night air.

Something struck the ground right in front of his nose; something else brushed his leg again; and he was running for the relative shelter of a gas station. There were catmen inside, but he could handle them. Compared to Diego and the sniper, they were almost tame. He collapsed against the side of the building to catch his breath.

Something sparked in his peripheral vision, but he didn't pay much attention. It seemed like something was sparking wherever he went lately. It almost reminded him of Ghost Writer's Christmas curse. If it wasn't sparking in his presence, it was blowing up. He jumped as whatever it had been did just that and forcibly dragged his attention towards…

Male or female, he didn't know, as half of its head was missing. He lunged to his feet, but he was too slow. As he fought against the all-consuming darkness, he saw that it wasn't alone.

There were too many of them, reaching out to him. Awake and aware, their voices were no longer a simple buzzing, but a shrill howl. He shuddered as though frozen, and in a way, he was. He couldn't move; he couldn't even think to move. The images they presented filled his mind until he could no longer remember who he was.

"Brother?"

The simple word cut through everything. The Malice screamed and backed away, and Danny realized he had fallen. He looked up slowly to see the little boy's pleading eyes in the darkness.

"Why?"

Danny held out his hand; he felt something take it. Suddenly, the light came back on directly in his eyes. He fumbled with it and finally managed to shut it off again, but the little boy was gone. He could see the Malice lurking around as it moved away. Behind the gas station loomed the clock tower. Now if he could just figure how to get there…


	10. Chapter Nine

A loud bang split the sky and was quickly followed by the crunch of concrete. Danny could just barely make out the base of the clock tower, let alone the clock itself. Yet somehow, the sniper was able to see him. That didn't come as a surprise, but it did make his life considerably more difficult. He stood, took a breath to center himself, and…

The lights went out. "I'm not afraid anymore…" whispered the little boy. Danny felt a small hand tightly grasp his own to lead him forward. He heard gunfire as the sniper tried to find him in the darkness, then even that stopped. After several nerve-racking minutes, his invisible guide vanished again, and the darkness with him.

"Thanks!" Danny called. A child's laughter echoed faintly in response.

The fog was every bit as thick as it was anywhere else inside the tower. A receptionist's desk lay broken in half nearby, the receptionist herself trapped beneath it. The boy quickly diverted his attention to stare around him, not that there was much to see. He turned quickly as something screeched nearby; somewhere, the squealing noise of a metal blade being dragged along the floor heralded the presence of slayers.

"Millions…" he muttered, nodding vaguely. "Everyone in Hollywood is going to want this script. I'll be rich."

_Are you there,_ amante_? Did you come at last?_

Danny didn't answer. She probably wasn't close enough to hear, anyway.

_I've missed you. I'm so lonely. The only voice I hear is mine, now…_

Now, what did that mean? Her earlier panic had been replaced by a despairing kind of resignation.

_I know what hate is, now. I never knew before. It's kind of funny. All this time, I thought I did. All this time, I mistook your hatred for love._

Something was definitely wrong with Silver. He wasn't overly inclined to care what happened to her, except that it might have repercussions that would be fatal for his friends and family.

And right on cue, the thought of them brought up their images lying on the floor in a large pool of blood. He forced his eyes away, but it didn't stop the relentless barrage in his mind. Silver threw hallucinations at him as another woman might throw dishes at a cheating boyfriend. Clearly, she was close enough to see.

His breath in ragged gasps from barely restrained tears, he dropped to his knees. "Please!" he begged. "Just stop! I'll do anything you want; just stop it and let them go."

_No, _amante, she replied, with a sneer on her usual term of "endearment." _That's far too easy. I know exactly what you think of me, now. Your other half explained it quite thoroughly. I don't love you anymore, and I'm going to win this game. And then, I'll make your _madre_ pay for this._

Danny yelled and jerked back as still-bleeding stump that had once been her hand appeared inches from his face. She seemed faded, wane. Her chains, which normally swayed and weaved like living things, hung limp around her. Her "voice" may have been angry, but her expression was hurt. Suddenly, her eyes focus on something behind him. In the split second before she vanished, they were filled with fear and dread.

Then he heard the muttering. "_Yo odio tú_."

Danny lunged to his feet and ran forward, but the fog meant that he couldn't see very far ahead. Not knowing where to run, he slammed into a wall and fell backwards to floor. The world might have spun around before his eyes, or it might have been the swirling haze. It didn't really matter anymore.

* * *

"_I had a little birdie, and her name was Enza…" Meryll sang. She was so pretty as she carved a mongoose into her hand gun._

"_Do you miss your mom?" he asked. She just giggled and shook her head. "But why not?"_

_She looked around, then leaned in conspiratorially. "Because she's not dead," was the whispered reply._

"_Then why did they have a funeral, Silver?" he pointed out, hoping to talk some kind of sense into his friend._

_She waved her chisel dismissively. "Because they're stupid and don't know any better. They think just because your body dies, it means you're dead."_

_He scratched the side of his and tried to make sense of that statement. Failing that, he finally asked, "But it does, doesn't it?"_

_Meryll rolled her eyes and pointed the gun at his head. He didn't bother to flinch; he knew it wasn't loaded. After a moment, she tapped the side of her head and grinned. "Mother lives up here now. She won't ever leave me alone again. You won't leave me either, will you?"_

"_Of course, not."_

"_Promise me. Prove you'll never leave me alone."_

_As he stared down the Mongoose's barrel, he suddenly found himself wondering if it really was unloaded. They said she killed that boy, that it was an accident. But how did you cut someone's head off with an axe by accident? She was his best friend, his only friend, and she scared him more than his father. He nodded slowly, then shifted so that he was on one knee. That's how one of the prisoners had told him it was done._

"_When we're old enough, will you marry me?"_

_The great black eye that filled his vision finally moved away. "I knew you would ask me one day," she said with a happy sigh._

_She was his friend, and he wanted his father. A beating would have preferable somehow.

* * *

_

"Leave him alone!" yelled a familiar voice. The dream and darkness cleared slowly cleared to allow Danny the sight of green energy blasts actually driving Diego away somewhat. "Run, you moron!" the ghost commanded, barely sparing him a glance.

But Silver was afraid of Diego, wasn't she? His legs didn't want to support his weight, but he managed to get his feet and stumble towards the elevators. Behind him, something screamed, a chilling noise that almost made him loose his conviction again.

Oh, who was he kidding? He lost that a long time ago. He'd been running more or less on autopilot since Killjoy's pet slayer dropped him into the basement.

He didn't pay attention to the silence behind him until a remarkable imitation of his voice asked scathingly, "You don't honestly think the elevators are working, do you?"

"L-leave me alone," he stammered, trying to sound brave. There was a pause, and an upside-down, white-haired head dropped into his field of vision.

"Dude, would you relax, already?" Phantom demanded as his human half yelped in fear. "She's gone!"

"Gone where?" Danny asked, trying to slow the rapid pounding of his heart. And more importantly, did he believe that? He wanted to. Certainly, the expression of scathing mockery was not one she would normally wear. Of course, it wasn't one he would normally wear, either.

On the other hand, neither of them were quite themselves.

Phantom shrugged and drifted over his head. "You think I care? The only reason I'm still here is you. Now, hurry up. It's a long way back up there, and I can't phase through anything."

Danny glanced around fearfully and hastened to catch up. "You don't care about everyone else?" That thought was kind of scary.

The ghost shrugged again. "Not really."

They climbed in silence, and Danny stared at his feet. He was a bit disillusioned by his ghost half. For some reason, he had been expecting the overly-heroic Danny Phantom who had appeared last time he split himself. That time, however, he had wanted his personality to be split like that. This time, he just wanted Silver gone.

That had worked out real well, hadn't it?

He wanted to know what his ghost half had done to her, but he was almost afraid to ask. He knew he would find out anyway when they became one again, but he wanted to know right then. It was important. Sadly, it would have to wait.

Phantom gasped in something that was probably anger and started blasting into the fog. Danny could just make several souls beyond him. He trained the light on them; a few shrieked and vanished. Many were simply annoyed. Some he had met; some he hadn't. One in particular he recognized as having been one of her last victims. He vividly remembered seeing the man's body hanging limply in a tree, a last ditch effort to escape the monsters on the ground.

His other half laughed lightly and flashed him a grin that was, at last, more teasing than mocking. "Not too bad for a human."

Danny scoffed. "Hey, I'm a Fenton, remember? That beats a ghost any day."

Somewhere along the way, beating off the Malice became a lighthearted contest. They were surrounded by the moaning, reached things, but the simple fact they were together again made it a little easier to bear. Slowly, the Malice started to thin out. Unfortunately, he quickly realized why.

Something grabbed him by the back of the shirt and tried to pull him out Diego's reach. "Why are they all after you?" Phantom demanded. He blasted the Malice and rolled his eyes. "What am I saying? You're alive; of course, they're after you."

Danny was a bit too distracted to answer.

* * *

"…_And this is the electric chair, where Horace died," Meryll was saying. "He died the day I was born."_

"_Wow…" Kev breathed. "Can I sit in it?"_

"_I don't think you should do that," he interjected uncomfortably._

_The white haired girl laughed brightly. "You're no fun! Let's play executioner! Kev, you can be the victim."_

_The condemned child hooted with joy and jumped into the chair while Meryll led him into the control room. "You're not really going to do it, are you?" he asked, shaking slightly._

_She laughed; she actually laughed. He couldn't believe it. "Are you scared?"_

"_I just don't want him to die."_

_There was that laugh again. He couldn't help but shudder; it made her sound…insane. "He's not going to die," she replied in exasperation. "I told you. He'll be here with me like everyone else."_

_He couldn't stop her. Worse than that, he wasn't sure he wanted to. She was the boss, after all.

* * *

_

He swam back into awareness to the sound of his other half complaining loudly. "Wake up, already! Look, it's gone! Just get up!" He sounded a bit frantic.

"I'm back…" Danny muttered, rubbing his eyes. He almost would have preferred the darkness. Not the images, of course, but the cool dark. His head was pounding. "How long was I…out?"

Phantom laughed mirthlessly. "Out? Yeah, that's about right. About a minute. Just long enough for your flashlight to get broken." He displayed its shattered remains. He glanced behind him and rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "We may have a minor problem." Danny didn't actually need an explanation. He could see two gorger captains behind the ghost.

Darwin had driven off the Malice.

"I'll keep them busy," Phantom continued. "You get upstairs."

"But-"

"Just go!" He abruptly turned away to yell something at the gluttonous creatures. Danny hesitated a few moments more, but he knew his other half would be stuck protecting him if he stayed. He ran.


	11. Chapter Ten

The sounds of fierce battle echoed up the stairs to where Danny had finally stopped. The stairs were just too steep. His legs felt far too heavy to take another step. Fortunately, he had finally managed to get above the fog level, so he didn't have to worry about the Malice anymore.

He heard a cry of pain; it sounded like Darwin. Something, probably a slayer, screamed from above him. He strained his ears, but everything was quiet. Torn between joy and unease, he remained where he was. Maybe his other half had won and would join him shortly.

Te odio, Silver whispered. _Do you know what that means? It means, 'I hate you.' I thought he was just teasing when he said it._

"Why?" Danny finally asked the question that had been burning in his mind since they first met. "Why…you? Why this? Why any of it?"

_I don't know what you're saying to me. I can't hear you anymore._

The boy stood and began trudging up the stairs again. He wasn't very surprised to see her on the landing, although it did startle him. They stared at each other for a few minutes until he dropped his gaze and moved past.

_I lied, you know. I could never hate you._

He almost stopped involuntarily, but he merely stumbled and kept climbing. The pity was back. He knew his other half would probably have called him weak, but he didn't care. He just wished he understood, or at least that Jazz was there to explain. Or that his ghost half was there so he could properly hate her again. Or…

Oh, who even cared? None of that was happening anyway.

He was so tired. It was getting close to dawn again, but he couldn't stop, not while he was so close. He stumbled and fell to the steps where he simply lay for a while. His feet hurt; he didn't want to think about how long he had been walking.

_How do you intend to beat me, anyway? I'm incorporeal, now. You can't touch me, but I can touch you._

As if to prove her point, an invisible hand shoved him hard. He scrambled for some kind of hold as he rolled down the steps and abruptly slammed into…well, nothing, really. He simply floated in midair for a few seconds until Silver decided to drop him. He must have hit his head during the roll because his headache had spontaneously become worse. He was probably sporting a set of bruises to rival anything Dash had ever given him. He didn't want to see his reflection right then.

"Wow, you look pretty," said a dry voice.

"You're alive!" he exclaimed, whirling around.

Phantom stared at him for a second before breaking out into good-natured snickering. "No. Not exactly."

Danny waved him off dismissively. "You know what I mean. Are you okay?"

The ghost wasn't in much better than he was. Ectoplasm bled freely from multiple gouges and gashes. He wore an especially nasty-looking scrape just below one eye. Unlike the human, however, Phantom's wounds were visibly healing, though at a very slow rate. He glared wrathfully up at the next landing where Silver stood exuding an aura of superiority. Having acquired both of their attentions, she vanished.

"Do you know how much farther it is?" Danny asked quietly.

Phantom shrugged. "Not too much, I think. Of course, I was flying on the way down. I'm too weak to carry you back up."

"I figured that. Come on."

Danny trudged upward until he finally collapsed a few steps from the top; Phantom landed carefully barely a step above him. They watched the opening onto the machine room: one with trepidation and breathing heavily from exertion; the other in mild irritation at the stupidity of the whole situation and not breathing at all. After a moment, they looked at each other. It was somewhat awkward to stare at themselves, and they quickly looked away.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Danny started hesitantly. Phantom raised an eyebrow in question. "What did you…do to her?"

The ghost sneered and laughed once, harshly. "Not much of anything, really. She just went a little crazy when all her voices disappeared. Not that she wasn't crazy to begin with."

The human boy sighed with relief and stood; his counterpart drifted back into the air barely a second behind. They weren't exactly ready for anything they might face, but they couldn't waste anymore time. Coming to a silent agreement, Phantom went intangible and poked his head out first. He froze, then slowly and carefully reached over to grab his human half by the front of his shirt and pulled him out. The second Danny cleared the stairs, he was shoved rather hard behind some large machine that might have controlled the clock hands. He had no time to ask what that was for as the ghost quickly followed, going intangible the rest of the way to dive through him rather than crash into him. He carefully peeked out to see what they were up against.

It might have been human at one time; now, it looked more like a melting wax doll. Blood and some clear liquid ran down the front of its body, which had been burned away as though by acid, exposing its internal organs. A single, large red eye was left intact on its face, and it bulged out from the socket as though being pushed from behind.

"Deadeye," Phantom all but growled.

"But where's everyone else?" Danny hissed back.

"Knowing Silver? Probably home in bed." They shared a noise of pure disgust. "Look, I'll fly out there. I don't think it can hurt me if I'm intangible. You shoot it down with that thing."

The boy hefted his rifle and nodded, then got as close to the edge of the machine as he dared. After what seemed like an eternity, he heard his other half's idea of witty banter and shuddered. It was definitely a bit more vicious than he would have liked, but it was clearly effective. Shots rang out as Deadeye tried to hit the rapidly moving Phantom.

He leaned out, then pulled back as a bullet rang out. It embedded itself in the floor mere inches away. After a few moments, he tried again with much the same result.

"Dude! Shoot him!" Phantom yelled.

Danny leaned out again, this time on the verge of tears from fear. Once again, he was nearly shot. He was beginning to understand why they called the malefactor "Deadeye."

"Danny!" his ghost half yelled, sounding on the verge of panic himself.

"I can't!" Danny called back. He flinched as Phantom cried out; one of the shots must have hit after all. He gripped the rifle more tightly and resolved that this time he would take the shot, and then he was panicking for a completely different reason.

Phantom was just about to yell for him again when he ran screaming from his hiding place. After a moment, even Deadeye seemed to forget the battle as fog crept slowly across the floor like a living thing. Apparently, even the ruthless malefactor was afraid of the Malice.

The ghost threw himself out of the way as Diego crept forward and casually shredded the sniper. It turned in his direction briefly, then, somehow detecting Danny's presence, turned away. He mentally cursed himself for breaking the boy's only weapon against that thing, ineffective as it may have been.

Danny backed himself against a wall trying to escape the Malice. He slid down it, shaking uncontrollably. He was truly terrified that if Diego caught him this time, he wouldn't survive. He clenched his eyes tightly closed and waited until a blast of ectoplasmic energy crashed to the ground just a little too close for comfort.

"I said leave him alone!" Phantom roared, enraged. Danny scrambled out of the way as his other half tried to physically wrestle the Malice into submission. It didn't work out, and he shortly went flying into the far wall.

The boy tried run to his counterpart; something caught him by the shoulder. He saw everything Silver had ever done to Diego, including making him party to a few of her murders. He knew everything she had ever done; he was her sole confidante. He had watched as she electrocuted Kev. He had been hiding nearby when she finally killed her only rival, his father. She had blown his half of his head off.

He had listened with disgust as she related the tale of her first murder, that of her mother. He didn't want to know about the drowned girl or headless boy, but she had been so happy to tell him. It was as though she had done some great deed. Most of the children who died during the flu epidemic had been her doing. She had killed inmates for pleasure and to stay in practice. She had even told him that Hermes let her turn the gas on for him when he committed suicide.

And he had stayed through it all, hating himself for not simply killing her. He had watched her play her game and said nothing out of cowardice. When the land had finally risen up in rebellion, it was like a sign. It was a sign that it was time, that he could finish her at last…

* * *

"_Meryll!" he said frantically over the radio. "You have to hurry! Please!" He waited for a response that never came, but that didn't matter anymore. He knew she was on her way. After all, the only allowed to torture him was her._

_He ran to the cellar to wait for her; he knew she wouldn't be long. It was easy to hide in the darkness. Once, he saw an inmate run by, but the man didn't see him. After a while, he saw her. "Diego, lover!" she called, concerned. "Where are you? What have they done to you?"_

"_Right here!" he snarled, lunging out to clamp the heavy iron shackle around her wrist. She gasped in alarm, then smiled slightly and made a token effort to fight him off. Obviously she thought this was some new game, but that was okay. It made his job easier, and she'd figure it out soon enough._

"_Now, what?" she nearly purred as he clamped one last chain around her throat. Maybe that was a bit of overkill, but she was a witch. The whole island knew it, just as they knew that iron was the only way to beat a witch._

"_Now?" he laughed. "I'm leaving. I'm leaving you alone."_

"_Alone, but…" She trailed off as he actually started up the stairs. "No! You can't leave!"_

_He stopped, and she sighed with relief. It was just a game after all. Then he hit her hard across the mouth. "You're an evil demon witch!" he spat. "You're the Silver Devil!" He hit her again._

_When he left for the second time, he didn't even slow down as she cried out, "Don't leave me alone!"

* * *

_

Danny was vaguely aware that something had hold of him, but he no longer cared. The images, the stolen vitality…it was too much. He let the darkness close around him.

* * *

A/N: Thanks to Anomaly25 for pointing out my Spanish goofup. That is right, this time, isn't it? 


	12. Chapter Eleven

_He felt very proud of himself as he stomped through the hall. That evil demon woman was finished; she wouldn't be killing anyone else._

Diego…

_He stopped short and looked around. That voice sounded so close, like it was right in his head. Then he saw her trudging up the stairs he had just left, still dragging her chains._

No one leaves me,_ she whispered into his mind._

_He cried out in alarm and staggered away. It was one thing to know a person was a witch; it was something else entirely to actually witness that kind of power. It removed all traces of lingering doubt. He crossed himself and wished he had thought to bring his Bible with him, although he had the sinking suspicion that his more-or-less Catholic upbringing would be little use against such a creature of evil._

"_No one leaves me," she repeated aloud. Her voice was a mix of anger and hurt; her eyes would have made water turn to ice. She reached out, and for just a second he was confused. Then survival instincts took over, and he threw himself out of the line of fire._

_He ran into a door at random, cursing as he realized it was the dining room. There was nowhere to hide, but if he could reach the kitchen door, he thought he might be able to escape. Another gunshot split the air and a point of fire appeared on the edge of one ear. He didn't need to reach up to know that she had grazed it. She was toying with him.

* * *

_

"_Amante…_"

His mind grasped the voice as though it was a life line. It didn't matter that it belonged to his worst enemy; it was a way out.

* * *

"_Why would you leave me alone?" Meryll asked, almost playfully._

_He backed slowly towards the table, mentally cursing himself for ever disregarding the superstitious theories that she had powers. How else could she have single-handedly tipped that bus over onto that inmate? Even if she was strong enough to move it, she couldn't have hurled all t he way across the yard to reach him. "It-it was a game!" he stammered hopefully. "I wasn't really going anywhere! I…I…I was j-just playing! Playing with you!"_

_She smiled brightly, and for a moment, he thought she believed him. Then he was flying backward into the table hard enough to break it in half. "Liar!" she yelled, both in his ears and in his mind. "You said you'd never leave me! You promised!"_

"_Meryll…" he tried to say. "Lover, I-"_

"_You're just like everyone else!" she interrupted. "Well, I know you won't leave me. I know because I'll make sure of it…make sure…you keep your promise…"_

_She sat on his stomach and caressed the side of his face, then pressed the Cobra's barrel into the middle of his forehead…

* * *

_

"_Amante, despierte_!"

"So…that's why you kill…" Danny muttered vaguely, forcing his eyes open. He gazed around through a bleary sleep-fog. "You think you can make them stay with you. But it doesn't really work, does it?"

The sound of gunfire sent him scrambling to his feet. He spared a moment to note that he was in a basement somewhere while he dashed up the rickety wooden steps and found himself in a painfully familiar hall. Suddenly, a door crashed open ahead, and he froze.

He could still see it in his mind as it played out before him. Diego crawled through the doorway on his stomach, pulling himself along with one arm. The other one had been shot. He turned his head slightly to look at Danny, and a pale foot stomped down, blocking his view.

Silver leaned over and whispered something. Although the boy couldn't hear her words, he knew what she said. "I can't kill you." She stepped over him and started to walk down the wall.

Diego continued to stare at the cellar door, but he didn't actually see Danny. He was nothing but a memory of what happened all those years ago. After a moment, he managed to pull himself to his feet and fumbled with his gun. His previous reluctance to shoot her had been due to the simple fact that she was a better shot. He had abused for so long that some part of him insisted that there was no way he would be able to kill her first. He had decided to chain her in the basement because he knew her…preferences. She wouldn't suspect what really he had in mind.

Maybe he had misunderstood what she meant, or maybe it was that she had shot him in the arm after threatening to shoot him in the head. He wasn't actually thinking when he fired, Danny was astonished to find that it was the exact same sense of helplessness he had felt when he shot her in the back with Mongoose. Was it possible…

The report was deafening in the close hall, but Silver wasn't distracted with pain and rage as she had been when Danny reenacted this scene. The bullet hit an invisible wall a few inches out of the barrel. "_Te odio_," Diego whispered. The boy didn't need his inner translation to tell him what that meant. Even if Silver hadn't already mentioned it, the man's tone crossed all language boundaries.

The bullet turned in the air and shot back toward its owner. Danny cried out and went to his knees as though the pain was his own. Some silver liquid dripped to the floor nearby, and he slowly looked upward into the barrel of his tormentor's gun. "What about you, _amante_?" she asked. "Will you promise to never leave me?"

It was the real Silver here in the Malice's dream world with him. He was about to ask how she got there, then his brain caught up with what was happening. Pleading wouldn't help; even promising probably wouldn't help. After all, Diego had broken his promise. But he couldn't just sit there whimpering; he had to do something, get through to her somehow.

Suddenly, the lights went out. "Big sister, why did you push me?" asked the plaintive voice of the little boy.

"Toby?" she muttered. Danny took the opportunity took quietly run around her. He couldn't see anything, but he knew it was a straight hall. He trailed his hand along the wall until it encountered empty air, then dashed into the foyer. He remembered the front door being directly across the room. As he ran across, the lights came back, and he saw that he would not be getting out that way. There was too much furniture piled in front of it. It hadn't been that way he first went through, but this wasn't the real world. He dashed upstairs instead.

Silver shrieked in fear. He could hear her trying to get away from something, probably the Malice, but that didn't matter to him. All that mattered was getting away himself. He ran down the upstairs hallway until he reached the trapdoor that opened onto the attic. The giant box he remembered had been replaced by a ladder. What he was going to do once he got there, he didn't know.

He paused with one foot on the ladder, debating. This really was just like a horror movie. And just as the first person to die always did, he was about go upstairs where he would be trapped with the villain. Then Silver was running down the hall behind him, yelling for him to get up there.

They stopped in the middle of room, as much to catch their breath as because they had nowhere left to go. "Can it get up here?" Danny panted.

She opened her mouth, but the answer was rendered needless by the fog that crept up to join them. She seemed to wilt as she shook her head. "Diego, why?"

"Hello!" Danny exclaimed. "You threw him into a table and shot him twice! What do expect him to do? Love you forever?"

Silver closed her eyes sadly, and he realized that, yes, that was exactly what she had expected. Then her eyes snapped open to glare with that cold rage. "Together…forever…" she whispered in a terrifyingly menacing voice.

Danny jumped back as she tried to grab him, and continued backing away as she advanced. The Malice gathered slowly behind her, but she was too intent on her quarry to properly notice. "You're mine!" she said through clenched teeth. "Maybe I don't know what love is, but I know what I want. You'll be mine, and we'll be together forever with Diego and Toby and-"

"Over my living body!" yelled a voice mere moments before something black and white shot out of the fog and slammed into Silver. Phantom grabbed a handful of chains to keep her from falling into Danny, then used them to swing her around into the waiting arms of her husband.

Her scream was almost inhuman, and it didn't stop quickly. Both boys cringed and turned away; not even the ruthless ghost wanted to see what happened. It was a long time before the screams faded and longer still before they turned back to see the aftermath.

There was nothing left. Having finally gotten its revenge, the Malice faded away, and the dream world along with it.

* * *

Danny opened blue eyes to stare into bright green ones. "Living body?" he croaked. His voice didn't seem to want to work any more than the rest of him.

Phantom shrugged and helped him sit up. "Well, I'm already a ghost. What was I suppose to say?" They stared at each other for a few more minutes, then burst out into laughter. And if it was a little hysterical on the human boy's part, well, he deserved the chance to go a little crazy. Just for a minute.

"How did you get there?" he asked.

The ghost shrugged. "Killjoy helped. It's kind of confusing, so why don't you just wait until we're together again, and you can remember it?" He lifted the Fenton Thermos by its strap and held it in front his counterpart's face. "Not much chance to use it, huh?"

"I kept forgetting I had it. And…I didn't really want to use it on you."

Phantom shrugged again, but the spark of gratitude in his eyes completely ruined his attempt at uncaring. He floated into the air and lifted Danny off the floor. "Come on; let's go home."

* * *

A/N: I'll confess. I had a really good reason for having that there. Basically, Danny was to going to catch Silver (still overshadowing Phantom), and she was going to go completely nuts, use her telepathy to get free, and just lay into poor Danny. Then, while she was distracted trying to kill him, the Malice was going to get her. I like this better. 


	13. Epilogue

Together, at last; Danny had started to think the day would never come. The second he got home, his parents had pounced on him and driven his ghost half away. They may have been cautiously grateful, but that didn't mean they were going to invite a ghost inside for coffee.

Everyone had been gathered there except for Kat, and all of them were somewhat confused as to what they were doing there. Maddie and Jack, of course, decided that a ghost was involved; they weren't too far off. Valerie must have agreed because she snuck off to change into her ghost hunting gear and go after Phantom. Paulina had expressed general distaste for the accommodations and disbelief for the story. Upon opening the front door to leave, she had abruptly changed her mind and insisted that Jazz drive her home. After expressing their concern and desire for all of the more interesting details later, Sam and Tucker had gone as well.

It had taken all day before his parents finally left him alone, but they eventually went to bed, allowing him to sneak down to the basement. It had been another hour before Phantom had arrived, and they were able to go back through the Fenton Ghost Catcher and become one again.

Having two sets of memories was a strange sensation, and it made him a little dizzy. Surprisingly (or not), he still had no more insight into Silver's mentality than he already did, except that she had started as a sociopath. He would talk to Jazz later.

He drifted through the cool night sky, perfectly happy for the first time in a long time. Sure, he would probably have some interesting nightmares for a while, but it was over, and everyone was okay. There was just one more thing to do.

Kat had not been at her usual karaoke bar, nor had she been at the cemetery. He was actually very happy that he wouldn't have to stand around with a bunch of corpses. Even underground, just being there for the few minutes it took to decide she wasn't there had freaked him out a little. He dove through the roof of Casper High and was surprisingly happy to see that it had taken little damage. Slayers had been there, and there were a few dead mainliners still lying about, but the only damage was to some lab equipment and a few doors that had been torn off their hinges.

He slipped into the auditorium to see a very unexpected sight. Kat was too far away for him to see her, but one of her mini portals hovered in the air behind her father. Technus glanced over and noticed him. He seemed about to say something, but Kat must have intervened. Instead, he simply sneered before retreating back into the Ghost Zone.

"What was he doing here?" Danny demanded.

Even up close, the astral gremlin was still rather faded. It didn't stop her superior attitude, though. "Wouldn't you like to know?" she teased.

The ghost boy huffed and changed the subject. "Are you okay? Did Silver hurt you?"

Kat thought for a moment. "Name doesn't ring a bell…but yeah, I'm fine. I've just been trapped in the power lines."

So she had been helping him; he had thought it was something like that. He shook his head. "Never mind. She's gone for good anyway. I just wanted to say thanks for your help."

"What help?"

Danny blinked, confused. "Wasn't that you? I mean, every time I stopped for too long, or when something was about to attack me? That wasn't you making things blow up?"

Kat thought for a moment, then started to laugh. "No, dear. That wasn't me."

The boy continued to stare at her, then his eyes drifted over to where Technus had vanished. "You…have…got to be kidding…"

"Oh, don't worry. He was helping me, not you. Helping you just happened to be a side effect."

Well, he thought he could live with that. They said their goodbyes, but he waited until Kat joined her father in the Ghost Zone before returning home. The whole way there, his gaze kept darting around, waiting for Killjoy to show up or maybe Silver herself. He dropped down into his room and switched back to human mode.

Suddenly, though not unexpectedly, time slammed to a halt. For just a second, Killjoy stood between Deadeye and a very brow-beaten Darwin. Then they were gone, and the doctor's voice spoke from his radio.

"You see, my boy? A cure, at last! Did I not say that I am a miracle-worker? But no matter. I do believe you will be alright, but don't think for one second that I won't stop to check up on you once in a while. So many of my patients fall back into their old ways out from under my watchful eye. Still…very well done, my boy. Very well done, indeed. Now, if only our dear Meryll would oblige…"

* * *

A/N: Yay! Done with Silver, at last. I got to say, the angst was getting to me. Next up, Erik. And I'm sure a handful already know what it's about just by the title. By the way. I know in the beginning, I said I'd write a parody next. Well, I did. I'm just not ready to post it yet. It's number fourteen. But you guys are going to love it when I get there. _/evil grin/_


End file.
